. 1 8 6 L I E U T E N A N T C O O K ’S V O Ï A G E
1 7 7 0 .
Auguft.
rately laid down. Over the fouth point is fome-high land,
but the north point is formed by a low fandy beach, which
Saturday 4.
I *
extends about three miles to the northward, where the land!
begins again to be high-
The chief refrefhment that we procured here, was turtle-,
but as they were not to be had without going five leagues
out to fea, and the weather was frequently tempeftuous,,we
did not abound with this.dainty : what we caught, as welL
as the f i f h , was always equally divided among us all byweight,
thé meaneffi perfón on board having the-fame fliare
as myfelf; and I think every commander, in fuch a voyage-
as this, will find it his intereft to follow the fame rule; In
feveral parts of the fandy beaches, arid fand hills near the
fea, we found purflaih, and a-kind of bean that-grows upon,
a ftalk, which creeps along the ground: the purflain we
found very good when it was boiled, and the beans are riot
to be defpifed; for we found-them of great fetvicfe to our
fick: the beft greens, however, thdt could be procured here;
were the tops of the eoccos, which have been mentioned already,
as known in the W-eft Indies by the name of Indian
kale: thefe were, in our opinion, not much inferior to
fpinnage, which in tafte they fomewhat rcfemble; the roots
indeed are not good, but they might probably be meliorated
by proper cultivation. They are found here chiefly in boggy
ground. The few cabbage palms that we met with, were
in general fmall, and yielded: fo little cabbage that they
were not worth feeking.
Befides the kanguroo, arid the opoffum that Have been already
mentioned, and a kind of polecat, there are wolves
upon this part of the coaft, if we were not deceived by. the
tracks upon the ground, and feveral fpecies pf ferpents;
fome of the ferpents are venomous, and fome harmlefs:
3 there
there are no tame animals here except dogs, and of thefe 1770.
we faw but two or three, which frequently came about the ,
tents, to pick up the fcraps and bones that happened to lie Slturda)' S
Scattered near them. There does not indeed feem to be
many of any animal, except the kanguroo; we fcarcely faw
any other above once, but this we met with almoft every
time we went into the woods. Of land fowls we faw crows,
kites, hawks, cockatoos of two forts, one white and the
other black, a very beautiful kind of loriquets, feme parrots,
pigeons of two or three forts, and feveral fmall birds not
known in Europe. The water fowls are herns, whittling
ducks, which perch, and, I believe, rooft upon trees, wild
geefe, curlieus, and a few others, but thefe do not abound.
The face of the country, which has been occafionally mentioned
before, is agreeably diverfified by hill and valley, lawn
and wood. The foil of the hills is hard, dry, and ftony,
yet it produces coarfe grafs befides wood | the foil of the
plains and vallies is in fome places fand, and in fome clays
in fome alfo it is rocky and ftony, like the hills; in general,
however, it is well clothed, and has at leaft the appearance
o f fertility. The whole Country, both hill and valley, wood
and plain, abounds with ant hills, fome of which are fix or
eight feet high, and twice as much in circumference. The
trees here are not of many forts; the gum tree, which we
found on the fouthern part of the coaft, is the moft common,
but here it is not fo large: on each fide o f the river, through
its whole courfe, there are mangroves in great numbers
which in fome places extend a mile within the coaft. The
country is in all parts well watered, there being feveral fine
rivulets at a fmall diftance from each other, but none in the
place where we lay, at leaft not during the time we were
there, which was the dry feafon; we were however well
fupplied with water by fprings, which were not far off.
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